Like so many other Friday nights, the friends knew where to meet on this Upper West Side block to unwind.
Michael Saint-Hilaire and Jason Negron were cracking jokes and downing cold cans of Coca-Cola between the occasional smoke, according to friends who were with them on Friday, May 15. The temperature that night, in the mid-60s, was a sign they should stay longer. Mr. Saint-Hilaire straddled his parked motorcycle as Mr. Negron, still in his work uniform, stood next to him. Friends kept showing up.
The two had deep roots around 109th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, a corner where Columbia University students share the sidewalks with elderly men who chat in Spanish as they sit in folding chairs under the shade of trees.
That Friday as the bars filled up, the growing group of friends spotted an old pal across the street. Mr. Saint-Hilaire, 35, and Mr. Negron, 46, walked over to meet the person at the cement median, near a small garden decorated with purple and red flowers. They stood right between the bike and traffic lanes. It was nearly 6 p.m.
Two blocks away, Elvin Suarez, 61, was speeding in a black Mercedes-Benz S.U.V. toward his Upper West Side home, according to the police. Mr. Suarez’s Mercedes grazed the passenger side of a white S.U.V., the police said, and then he seemed to accelerate.
Ruben Sena, 59, could hear Mr. Saint-Hilaire and Mr. Negron laughing with three friends from his barbershop. Mr. Sena had given each of them hair cuts over the years.
Then a boom and a flash of light from the black Mercedes startled him. He saw bodies hurtle past the glass door.
The S.U.V. hit the cement median and went flying, video and eyewitness accounts would later show, striking a parked car with a man inside, a cyclist and the group of friends.
Mr. Sena rushed out and tried to help. Three were hurt terribly. Mr. Saint-Hilaire had landed facedown. When he was turned over, there was a gash on his head. He was dead. Mr. Negron was pinned under the black S.U.V., which had come to rest against a parking meter with its front wheels on the sidewalk.
By the end of the night, Mr. Negron would be dead as well. And three of their friends would be in the hospital critically injured. The police said Mr. Suarez had been inebriated when he smashed his S.U.V. into the crowd.
Mr. Suarez was charged with manslaughter, assault and driving while intoxicated.
Mr. Saint-Hilaire lived on the Upper East Side. But he would still make the journey across Central Park to visit friends in the neighborhood where he grew up, said Kelvin Espiritusanto, 32, a lifelong friend. He was a Yankees and Knicks fan who sang reggaeton, inspired by his idol, the singer Bad Bunny. He was stylish and sported threads from Chrome Hearts, a luxury brand from Hollywood.
That Friday, Mr. Saint-Hilaire pulled up to the old neighborhood on his chrome and black motorcycle, Tribecca Marte, 32, said. He could not stop talking about being the father of nearly 2-year-old triplets, she said. Mr. Saint-Hilaire, who cleaned surgical rooms at Mount Sinai, had been planning to go back to school so he could increase his earnings.
“You stop by, and the next thing you know,” Mr. Espiritusanto said, “you’re here for a while.”
Mr. Negron had never left the neighborhood. He went to high school nearby and had been working as a doorman two blocks away for the past 20 years, Mr. Espiritusanto said. He loved anime, and, like Mr. Saint-Hilaire, was an old-school wrestling fan. Mr. Negron would bring his wife and their two teenage daughters to Comic Con and WrestleMania, Mr. Espiritusanto said.
On that Friday night, Mr. Negron told the group of friends that he had taken his wife, Jackie Negron, out for her birthday two days earlier. He told them the restaurant, Jacob’s Pickles, had been expensive, but worth it, Ms. Marte said. As usual, the two friends shared their family news, as well as jokes. But the talk kept coming back to family milestones, Ms. Marte said.
The birthday party doubled as a celebration of the couple’s eldest daughter, who is about to go to college, Ms. Marte recalled Mr. Negron saying that night.
“They were great guys, hard-working guys,” Ms. Marte said. “And they loved their families.”
Just a few blocks away from the crash, friends of Mr. Suarez, the driver and a father of five and grandfather of 11, were struggling to understand what happened that Friday night.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said his building superintendent, Rodney Aguirre, 49, who has known Mr. Suarez most of his life. Mr. Suarez had planned to retire this year, Mr. Aguirre said.
“The family wants to express their deepest and most sincere condolences to the families who lost loved ones,” Lawrence M. Fisher, Mr. Suarez’s attorney, said. “And to the persons that were injured.”
That Friday night, right after the accident, Mr. Sena recalled speaking to Mr. Suarez. He exited the damaged S.U.V. and laid down on the sidewalk.”
As he made his way to each injured person, Mr. Sena said, Mr. Suarez sat up and asked a question: “I hit somebody?”
“I said, ‘Yes! You hit all my people here!’” Mr. Sena recalled.
Mr. Suarez cursed and laid back down until the police arrived.
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
The post Everyone Knew Them on the Block. Then a Friday Ritual Ended in Tragedy. appeared first on New York Times.
